Soft Night
by Sarvihaara
Summary: Moonlight softens the hardest feelings. Harry/Draco mild slash.


His face is curved beautifully

Author: [Sarvihaara][1]  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Everything recognisable belongs to JKR and her wonderful imagination.  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Summary: Moonlight softens the hardest feelings.   
Notes: This is slash, m/m. It's mild, very mild, but I thought I'd better warn everyone... and it's not beta'd, so if anyone finds anything wrong with it please let me know.

**  
Soft Night**

His face is curved beautifully. Soft skin reflects pale blue in the sliver of moonlight tracing a shimmering line from his forehead, down his cheek and along his jaw. Cream coloured lips part relaxed and damp. I can almost see the heat of his inside fire cloud the cold night air as he breathes out in a misty burst of flavour.

I try to breathe evenly, silently.

He looks so curved and smooth and flawless in the half light. No sharp edges, stabbing scowls, furrowed eyebrows. No glare of brightness too painful to face. Soft shadows blanket his surface, trace the lanky frame resting so casually against the wall. Long fingers rest gently, feather touch of warm fingertips placed ever so carefully against his upper thigh. No clenched fists, strung nerves fed by irritation and frustration.

He taps a single finger once against his robes. A hypnotic rustle of fabric weakening my composure, dropping my shoulders, fixing my eyes uncontrollably on that slender pale hand that could cover flesh so coldly and burn it so brightly.

The half light hides his smirk, dissolves his door of protection that's slammed firmly shut at all times, blocking the world to the controlled mess of tangled feelings revolving inside. His face is open in the half light, the heavy door swung back on its hinges, an invitation to another universe, a look through unfamiliar eyes at a familiar world.

Peaking around the doorframe is like trespassing on fields of cocaine; dizzying at the possibilities and deadly from the reactions of rightful owners. I stare, through the creamy pallor of blue moonlight tinged skin, through layers of flesh on the high curve of his cheek. 

His eyelids drop slightly, content. Free of guilt, happy with the mixture of malice and cruelty that seems to define him as a being. Human? Inflicting all that pain, how can he not see what he does and not care?

But I can't seem to relate him to that stinging person, not here in the half light.

His eyes hold a shimmering clear layer over silver flecked irises. They glint like polished metal, cleaved and shattered and scattered across his lids to gleam maliciously in the daylight. The shadows dull their lustre, slicing edges; a softness completely foreign to his familiar face, so often seen staring daggers as he passes.

I'm obsessed, I know. I could stare for hours, describe for hours the slight shadowed crevice where neck meets shoulder, soft curled strands of blond hair blending them together, a continuous covering of soft skin; the contrast of metallic irises against pearly white and grey lashes. And he just stares. Out the window letting in the softening midnight sun. To the stars, to the black covering of sky, treetops stretching into the distance.

Not a mark of arrogance, not a blemish of frustration, not a thin lipped trace of a smirk. Peace.

He looks almost human, and I feel uncomfortable, out of control from this revelation. My grasp slips on the invisibility cloak and I fumble to hold it. But the damage is done, the sound reverberates in the silence, and his head whips towards me. I clench the cloak useless in my hands.

The door to his insides slams and is bolted shut, closing off the face of curved flawless flesh. Eyebrows incline, eyes narrow to unattractive slits, maliciously sending the cold steel message of knives. And I stare back, lost in this change, this system shut down and regeneration in the opposite direction. His relaxed lips close, press together, and I forget that I'm in the wrong, I've been found out. I watch as his gentle fingers curl around themselves, into a ball, into a fist, nails digging into a tender palm. My green eyes find his again, unconscious of being distracted, and stare him down.

How can people do this to him, affect him so? How can *I* do this to him, turn his character upside down and inside out?

The half light seems to have thawed, dissolved, the sky lightening. How long had I been standing here watching him? The shadows slip away, run off his body like illusive water, leaving jagged edges, proud shoulders, pointy features. The softness that had absorbed me so completely has disappeared with the half light, and I stare now, engulfed in coldness, a familiar hatred seeping icily into my bones. This was the Malfoy I was used to, the Malfoy I could handle.

"What do you want Potter?" Clipped, biting words. I'd stepped into his space.

I try to form a response, but can't remember why I had come up here in the first place. Vaguely tugging against my chest is the moonlight distorting my enemy into a blur of pale blue, smooth lines and wanted touches; into something I want him to be.

Something he's not.

  
****

Please review!   
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed my other stories. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything for so long, real life has pulled me away from my computer...

~Sarvi 11/4/01.

   [1]: mailto:lunaloo_@hotmail.com



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